Guild Wars 2

conditions don’t seem to do a lot of damage. They are great at tagging lots of enemies at once, but beyond that, they are far to easily countered.

Now what I find is more problematic just how much damage tanky builds do in relation to zerker builds. You put 2 of the same classe against each other, stick one in PVT gear and the other in zerker gear… and the PVT geared person will do more damage. How does one explain that?

This was even the case before the crit nerf, but of course with the crit nerf, this situation became even worse.

I agree with #1 and #2 but depending on what server or Tier your on, #3 won’t work.

There is in no way, shape, or form that 15 players would be enough to take any keep or garrison in T1. More often than not, even a full 100 players can’t do it without a 2 pronged attack coming from another server.

You also have to take into consideration, many players like playing in full zerker gear; this doesn’t entirely work in small groups, but works much better in large groups. Instead of scaling zerg power down, why not scale NPC power up? To allow the offset of players?

I think everyone would agree, they’d like to enter into a match up with even numbers or semi even numbers when they log on. I don’t see why Anet just doesn’t create a system under the 3 factions which players can pick and choose whichever one they want to join when the log on.

The numbers should almost always be even at any given time anyone logs on. I don’t see how this can be a bad thing.

All towers, keeps/garrisons should have an upgrade that prevents player damage to doors. It’d give a much better reason to defend until this upgrade completes and prevents small groups from running around on a vacant map banging their heads against the door.

While were at it, why not have an upgrade that prevents all siege damage except trebs? The upgrade doesn’t need to be quick to get, but imagine now the importance of defending the structure if you can upgrade it to the point your enemies have to use trebs just to knock down the door.

Maybe even an upgrade that allows NPC’s inside to repair walls and doors if supply is available?

It would never work. It would punish ranged classes, or those that drop heavy AoE. Also the reason 11111111 or 2222222 works so well is it’s because it’s generally the strongest attacks for the most bang for your buck. 1 also has no real cool down. Now why would anyone stand there and not hit 1 while waiting for their other cool downs?

I think there are only 3 real solutions that will combat zerg play and I think 1 of them should be given some real thought.

1. Remove AoE cap however this won’t happen
2. Increase the AoE damage by a % given the number of enemies in a given area.
3. Either remove stability from WvW or shorten the duration and put a massive cool down (exhaust period) on it so it can’t be continually be re-applied.

I wish the devs would give #3 a really close look or consideration. Every battle starts the same, pop stability, pop veil (if your teammates are on the ball), run in. Anyone using any type of CC pretty much sees “immune” the whole fight. Either that or give stability charges that get eaten up every time a CC attempt is made.

Now how might WvW look then? Tactics would certainly have to be adjusted to emphasize less zerg play due to the mass CC going on.

Simple answer from my own experience:

If you run zerker, you don’t need to party, you do more than enough damage to get rewards, but it’s contingent on staying alive. If your karma training this shouldn’t be difficult

If you run hybrid or tanky, better to party up or you’ll be left out in the dark. Be as it may, it seems contingent on damage. I’d much rather it be contingent on whether you tag a lord or mob or not.

wads.5730:

so you basically want to be able to spawn rush your way to victory in order to defend something instead of actually having to play good.

Well that would make sense.. the defenders would now at least have a much better advantage (like they should)..

Ya it doesn’t make sense really. If anything, light armor classes should be given a natural 20% increase in movement speed (not including buffs), medium armor 10%, and heavy armor, no bonus.

Heavy armor classes should not have the ability to leap around and charge forward much like they do now. They have high armor for a reason.. Those abilities should be scrapped and replaced with something more appropriate.

I like both ideas.

1. Not sure why this isn’t even implemented yet. It just makes sense that lords and supervisors scale with the amount of people in the area. This will encourage smaller groups due the “holy hell this is taking forever to cap”, and the enemy zerg comes in and wipes you.

2. I thought of this the other day and I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Players will either adapt, or they will whine and leave. Players will ultimately want to play during a time when PPT is worth the most, so they should just naturally transfer to a server where they can get top PPT and not have to wait in a que. Bang for the buck so to speak.

Despite what people say or “you” might think, you are not being punished for this. You are still clocking PPT and capping the map which should be a walk in the park. If your playing during this time slot it’s because you choose to, so that would make it your own fault. If people don’t like it, change servers to another time slot where your PPT is worth more and the fights are plenty.

3. This one is solved by your suggestion 2.

Make transfers free for a period of time so all servers have a chance to evenly balance out. We’ll know this because it will reflect in the matches, they should be somewhat even.

I like the idea, but I think it would be much better if it was based on Tiers per say:

Tier 1 NA vs Tier 1 EU vs Tier 1 China

Coverage certainly wouldn’t be the issue anymore, although ques certainly would (especially for China). I certainly wouldn’t wan’t to fathom the que on reset day.

I suppose if Anet were to try and pull this off, they’d have to completely make a separate server for players to join that doesn’t interfere with the current WvW; that way there is technically some alleviation maps of WvW going on.

Perhaps call it Region vs Region vs Region.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It seems like someone has poor PC security. Why blame Anet when your computer has a keylogger installed?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

It seems like someone has poor PC security. Why blame Anet when your computer has a keylogger installed?

You need to understand that not everyone has a keylogger installed, there are other factors in how accounts are getting compromised.

My problem has since been fixed, everything changed, and everything is hunky dori. On that note, while in the process of changing everything, I had checked with my ISP, and my e-mail provider, as well as, having my comp additionally scanned at work on their security software, everything turned up clean.

I honestly thought my e-mail was compromised and the hacker had access to it, but after clearing with my isp and e-mail provider, that was not the case. Nobody had accessed my computer but me, yet a log-in from Korea compromised the account.

I don’t much care anymore as everything is back to normal, but you need to understand that a lot of what you say and claim or accuse people of doing is completely false. After reading many of your posts, you have been of absolutely no help to anyone, only antagonizing the situation.

Your better off just posting the security link info and be done with it.

Win trading is no more match manipulation than server stacking is. Both are geared towards making other servers lose while yours wins. The only difference is Anet profits off one of them but that may change in light of what’s going on.

If there is a season 3, I honestly can’t imagine any players stupid enough to transfer to a stacked server for fear of getting 2vs1 into a guaranteed loss. If this is the case, consider it the natural stabilization of server population.

On the other hand, why do people care in the first place? It’s not like money is involved or were getting legendary skins. The rewards are mistforge weapons which I heard aren’t even that great, plus (in all likely-hood), a pile of junk in a chest which will either be sold or salvaged.

If it’s for bragging rights, over-whelming coverage is nothing to brag about

Trading wins and/or engaging in 2vs1 only hurts 1 server but helps out many Stacking a server only helps 1 server while hurting many servers at once (both in the match and the servers the players left).

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand which one hurts the overall game more. Gotta keep the priorities straight here and keep the selfishness at bay.

Before manipulation is dealt with, a much larger problem needs to be dealt with in server stacking. Some players/servers can’t be left to police their own selfish and greedy behavior so it’s best if Anet does it for them.

If there is a commander tagged up with a decent following, TS or mumble will hurt you more than it’ll help. If your running small groups or tagless, then I can see it being needed.

The problem with large zergs sitting on TS means they all travel together in a nice little ball (usually). This makes them cannon fodder for a group of AoE back casters.

Sometimes the best way to fight is confuse your enemy, not be completely predictable and fight in a “welled up” group.

KumaTazZ.8054:

IMO it is fair to 2v1 the leader in tournament, but not 2v1 all the time bcos 2 servers hate 1 server.

So how about adjusting the max counters.
If Green is #1 Blue #2 Red #3
You can’t deal damage to green if you have 10 green counters.
You can’t deal damage to blue if you have 9 blue counters.
You can’t deal damage to red if you have 8 red counters.

This way the counter will force servers to attack the leader more than 2nd or 3rd place.

I have a better idea; take your idea but roll it into how many guilds/players one server has in over another..

If Green is #1 Blue #2 Red #3

Give 1 counter for each guild and 1 counter for each 50 WvW players one server has over another. Also give another counter for every guild that transferred over to another server 6 weeks prior to a WvW season starting.

Hard to follow? Not so much, it would look like this

Lets say the “Red” server has 10 guilds that transfer to it but lose 1, that would give them 9 counters. Suppose both green and red has 3 guilds transfer to them between them.. this would bring the overall counter to 6 to red.

Now suppose red, has 24/7 coverage across the board and Anet calculates it at Red has an average of about 200 more WvW players than the other servers, well that’s another 4 counters. (now were at 10).

Suppose Red also has 6 more active WvW guilds than Blue or green, that would bring their counters to 16.

Let’s change the name “counters” to “fair play ticks” If your fair play ticks reach 10, you can no longer capture any structures, and the moment your fair play ticks hits 10, all structures owned become neutral. Your overall war score gets sliced in half. The only way the fair play ticks diminish is if Blue or Green have enough guilds to transfer to them to balance it out + have enough WvW players to reduce Red’s fair play ticks. Either that, or Red’s guilds and players transfer to another server.

Sound fair? I actually like this idea, it would certainly stop one server from over-stacking.

It doesn’t matter what league it’s in, 2vs1 (match manipulation) only hurts one server; the server getting their butt’s kicked. Even that is subjective depending on who you talk to.

It does however help every other server in that league. You see, the lower ranked servers now have a chance to leap frog over the “victim” server in the rankings whereas as previously they had no chance.

Think of it this way, 1 server suffers while 5 others prevail, this is not a bad trade off.

Now lets look at the other side of the coin. The server who intends on stacking/buying/renting guilds (match manipulation). Who does it hurt? Well it hurts the other 5 servers in the league. Where they may have had a chance to compete before, now they don’t. Not only that, the servers that lost guilds to the stacking server also suffer due to their WvW populace leaving.

So think of it this way; 1 server prevails while 5 suffer + however many other servers whom lost their guilds. This does not sound like a good trade off.

Now ask yourself this, what exactly do you honestly think is worse? What do you think is more likely to lead to the demise of WvW?

Kellth.2146:

Everyone is saying coverage. Which I totally agree with. But what about skilled players? Do you believe a skilled group of players can make a “good” WvW server?

Well if it’s 100 skilled players vs 100 not so skilled players then yes, the skilled side should win 100% of the time. If it’s 50 skill vs 100 un-skilled, the 100 will still inevitably win.

You see, the 50 skilled players may win all the fights, but what do they do if larger group splits? 50 players fight while the other 50 players K-train all the towers. The smaller group can’t be in 2 places at once hence why coverage wins 100% of the time. That’s what makes a server dominant.

Request an update on Ticket: 580834 It’s been 5 days (April 29th)

Two parts to it, account restoration and request to change the e-mail address tied to the account. Better to change the e-mail on the account before an account restoration is granted.

Thanks!

Msandx.4105:

DeadlySynz.3471:

It does indeed take days, I’ve seen people post a week or so, and that was a few days ago. As tickets increase, the longer it will take. Looking into hacked accounts and rolling them back is a lengthy process.

As Astral said, it’s imperative that you change your e-mail password in case they did hack through your e-mail to get to your account. Check your deleted folder and see if there are any strange log in requests there. If you don’t see any, see if you can recover deleted files to see if they pop up in there as well.

How do you check this deleted folder? in my E-mail?? and how would i recover stuff but they did erase my characters and make a new one

It depends on what e-mail site you use. If it’s hotmail/outlook, if your in the deleted folder, there is a link at the bottom of that page to recover deleted e-mails. If your hacker was smart, they would have attempted deleted the e-mail on the attempt log in attempt.

This doesn’t work though as this particular e-mail can recover pretty much all your deleted e-mails. Not sure about other browsers though.

It does indeed take days, I’ve seen people post a week or so, and that was a few days ago. As tickets increase, the longer it will take. Looking into hacked accounts and rolling them back is a lengthy process.

As Astral said, it’s imperative that you change your e-mail password in case they did hack through your e-mail to get to your account. Check your deleted folder and see if there are any strange log in requests there. If you don’t see any, see if you can recover deleted files to see if they pop up in there as well.

The Swiss tournament is the best of choices but as Reverence said, it adds an element of politics and tactics which is a refreshing switch up so to speak.

I personally don’t like it as I’m benefiting from it and it’s causing the matches to be boring.

Yujin.1785:

FearedbytheGods.8617:

Yujin.1785:

Can’t really say anything about that screenshot since that’s SoS and doesn’t that show that we are fighting them?

You should look at it again.

In any event we’re at an impasse it would seem.

Most JQ/TC posters are sick of replying to BG posters who just post about the same thing again and again but in a different context. It’s been left up to other servers now to point out to you that 2v1’s happen and just because BG say ’it’s a 2v1 but not a 2v1’ doesn’t impress anyone.

Because I’ve never seen a satisfactory reply or explanation to that level of coordination between the two. Because it’s not exactly pleasing reading a line BG tears in almost every thread.

I’ve never seen a satisfactory reason or explanation that if there was something really going on between SoS and BG during that week, I would have thought that JQ would be third on that week. I mean really, the rhetoric around this forum is that BG has so much coverage that we can do anything. So ok, why couldn’t we keep SoS on second on that week?

One of the Anet Devs (Cant remember which one) specifically stated the 3 way WvW system was in place to allow 2 servers to take down the larger server. It’s working as intended. The only reason this is cropping up now is because no servers have ever bothered to really engage in a true coordinated 2vs1. 2vs1 is boring no matter what way you look at it, I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone on TC or JQ who finds it fun. They’d much rather have a completely even match up, but of course since BG is content stacking their server, it’s not even.

The reason you (BG) can’t keep JQ down the entire time is because SoS’s coverage pales in comparison to any of the T1 server’s coverage. It wouldn’t matter how much BG attacked JQ; if SoS’s structures are left un-defended for a period of time, a simple 5 man small guild run can take most things down. Couple that with the fact that it doesn’t take much to wipe a BG zerg, they don’t make very good defenders of allied structures.

This will be quite interesting to see how they handle it, whether they restore or not could cause a mass exodus of people from the game. It might not be just people who were hacked and left high and dry, it could also be those that simply do not trust the company anymore to keep their stuff safe.

You bring up a good point though, can we not have an option checked off on our account that blocks it if a foreign IP address tries to access it? I would think most people play on the same computer and thus would access the same IP address or at least range. When clearly an IP address is accessing your computer from say Korea, why can’t our accounts be automatically locked, then we authenticate them ourselves with our own IP that Anet can easily verify?

I know in my case I initially thought my e-mail was hacked/compromised, but I was wrong. My ISP and e-mail provider got back to me this morning and there was no foreign IP addresses or breach of any kind accessing my computer in the past 10 months.

The only IP addresses on their are mine, and Anet’s

You can change your e-mail, but you have to create a ticket to do so. I’m not sure you can change your account name entirely

Their reason behind their 1 rollback policy is due to the over inflation of the economy (which I can understand). There is a very easy way to combat this though, hard gold sinks. Ones that will have little effect to 98% of the players, and only to the gold sellers or those whom buy the gold seller’s gold

One other concern I thought of is, how safe is our credit card info on Anet’s servers (if it’s there) if we’ve purchased gems? Looking at old threads I see that Anet does in fact store credit card information (not sure if this is still the case). How exactly safe is it really? If hackers can obtain our e-mails off their server, whats to say they can’t get a hold of our credit card info. Best be safe to watch that too.

Perfectblue.6409:

DeadlySynz.3471:

BG had at least 7 guilds transfer to their server during the off season up to 3 weeks prior to Season 2 starting. I know this because I was there, 7 blackouts called to bring in 7 different guilds. I also know only 1 left.

The question is, how many more guilds joined BG the 3 weeks prior to Season 2 starting? Somehow I think more than 7 transferred there. I can tell you for sure that TC did not have 7 guilds transfer to them. I can’t speak for JQ but I’m pretty sure they did not have 7 guilds transfer to them either.

Before all the transferring went on who had the best coverage to begin with out of the 3? BG of course, did they need those (at least 7 guilds)? Not by a long shot.

You can spy all you want. Truth is, we have 2 new guilds which weren’t part of season 1, NV and SUPR. Both have like 1 pug commander each and 20 men guilds.

Yes BG does have the coverage. But BG has weaknesses, and in those times I know for sure TC and JQ has zergs

One day when you will be part of a winning server, I hope you wont have to share the egoism of your server mates!

play the game for fun! don’t take it too personal
cheers!

Nope not spying. Story is, I was originally from TC, then I took a 2 month break. During that time my guild transferred to BG. Once I came back, I ho-hummed about moving to BG. Season 1 came and I finally decided to move to BG about 2 weeks into Season 1. I stayed in BG until about 3 weeks prior to Season 2 starting.

After Season 1 ended, 1 guild left, but subsequently, 7 more joined because there was 7 blackouts in the off season while I was there. Now the question is, how many more guilds joined in the final 3 weeks before Season 2 started.

Say what you want, but I know at least 7 guilds joined BG in the off season, and that’s a lot more than TC had, and I’m guessing more than JQ had as well

It sounds like you were hacked or at least there was an attempt made. Lucky for you it sounds like you changed your password in time before any damage was done.

For your own safety though, check your e-mail that is attached to your account. See if there is a log in attempt. Check your deleted messages folder to see if there is a log in attempt in there. If nothing, also see if you have an option to recover deleted messages and see if there is an attempted log in as well. Hopefully all this proves to be clean. If not, you need to change that password immediately.

Anet’s official response is they are backlogged to due all these hacked and rollback requests coming in. If your lost your items and gold, expect it to take at minimum a week to get things back. They are claiming the the breach isn’t on their side but the user’s fault as 99% of the time the e-mail was compromised.

While it’s probably true the person’s email was compromised, what they fail to realize is that in some (if not many) cases, the hackers are getting people’s e-mails off of Anet’s site. These e-mails could have been obtained during their last security breach (back in 2012). There are also many people whom have taken all the suggested security measures by Anet and still got hacked.

The next issue is the one account rollback. If you did not roll your account back before, you are guaranteed to be safe (as long as everything checks out on your account). There are instances (I know of at least 1, where multiple roll backs have been granted) but don’t rely on it.

The bigger issue I see is with people like yourself who’ve spent loads of money on the game. It doesn’t make sense business wise to alienate players like you from the game whom have spent lots of money. Driving people away from the game who spend money is not entirely smart. It also doesn’t give confidence to people whom are willing to spend money to actually do so if there is a chance they lose their stuff. I myself lost gems, so why would I ever buy them again?

Perfectblue.6409:

For whoever it matters, cowards are cowards…..even if they win (JQ,TC(SOR in disguise who made the 2v1 possible by giving JQ all their commander names))

And whichever server is at the top, will have a bunch of people who will have BIG EGO! it doesn’t mean the server as a whole is egoistic.

BG turned down many guilds that wanted to transfer and asked them to join other servers. That for me shows that their management was a true winner wanting fights and fun rather than childish play!

Stop the hatred! Now get back to WvW and give me a lootbag!

BG had at least 7 guilds transfer to their server during the off season up to 3 weeks prior to Season 2 starting. I know this because I was there, 7 blackouts called to bring in 7 different guilds. I also know only 1 left.

The question is, how many more guilds joined BG the 3 weeks prior to Season 2 starting? Somehow I think more than 7 transferred there. I can tell you for sure that TC did not have 7 guilds transfer to them. I can’t speak for JQ but I’m pretty sure they did not have 7 guilds transfer to them either.

Before all the transferring went on who had the best coverage to begin with out of the 3? BG of course, did they need those (at least 7 guilds)? Not by a long shot.

I believe that’s how the math worked out for the servers. Trade wins until the final week, then JQ and TC and duke it out between the 2 without consequence of a 3rd servers points as they won’t matter anymore.

The thing is, I’m not sure whose supposed to be the 3rd server in the final week, but I believe it’s supposed to be SoS. It could be BG, either way, whomever that 3rd server is basically decides who takes 1st. SoS could simply only attack TC forcing them into 2nd, or they could easily just attack JQ forcing them into 2nd.

The interesting thing is, what if BG is that 3rd server in the final match? What route will they take? Will they attack both servers evenly, or will they just go after 1 server to make sure that server doesn’t place 1st.

2vs1 has it’s advantages, but it also can turn around and bite you in the kitten as well.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

DeadlySynz.3471:

mtpelion.4562:

The “Security Issue” is that lots of people used the same password for everything.
Hackers got that one password that was used for everything from a vulnerable site via heartbleed.
Hackers then simply entered the user name and password and stole the account.

If your account was hacked, it was because YOU didn’t follow the basic rules of using the internet:

#1. LONG passwords + Complexity = Security
#2. NEVER, EVER, for ANY reason should you use the same password twice
#3. Always assume links in emails are BAD, especially if you didn’t request the email.
#4. Every website is infected. Repeat that to yourself. Again. Let it sink in. Every website is infected. What do you do after visiting an infected website? You run a scan. Do it. Do it because every website is infected.

Incorrect, my account was hacked.

- The email I used, is only used for Gw2 (logging in to play or to these forums)
- Email password was also unique: numbers, + lower/upper case, 17 characters long
- My Gw2 password is completely different from my e-mail password
- The only e-mails I receive on that email address are guild wars 2 news updates or e-mail authentication requests
- From the last point, I never log in unless I have to (email authentication)
- I also have 3 active scanners on my PC at all times (probably overkill)

Security was not the problem, I’d reckon that my security measures are far more strict than others.

The e-mail attached to my Gw2 account was compromised, how did the hacker get a hold of my personal info? It’s only used to log into Gw2, soooo that would obviously peg it as a breach in Anet’s security for the hacker to obtain e-mail addresses.

Some e-mail sites are easier to crack than others. Lets say a hacker has access to 500 different e-mails through Anet’s breach; that doesn’t mean the hacker can gain access to all 500 e-mails. Maybe they can gain access to 100. Either way, the problem originated from the failure to guard personal information.

You can partially blame the user for choosing the wrong e-mail site, but the blame ultimately lies on the entity that fails to keep your personal information safe.

Not sure if you were around back towards the end of 2012, but thousands of accounts were compromised (e-mails included); what’s not to say that people’s e-mails were obtained back then but only used in the past couple of weeks to hack their accounts? Again, this would have been a security breach on Anet’s end due to the failure to protect personal information.

I understand that some people can be blamed due to their lack of care (identical passwords and e-mail addresses), but not all can be blamed. There are people out there who take strict security measures to protect themselves. When they can’t control another entity whom has their personal information, well, it’s really hard to blame the victim at that point.

Actually, that’s just proof that your own personal security wasn’t good enough. If your e-mail was hacked, and (assuming) you only used it for your GW2 account, that means you have a keylogger installed. Pretty simple explanation. Please don’t blame your hacks on a non-existent Anet breach.

There is no keylogger installed. They are no longer as common or easy to install as you may think (Unless one is a complete dunce).

You also seemed to have failed to read a certain part of my post: 3 active PC scan programs active on my computer at once. One of them happens to be a program our municipality uses specifically built for keyloggers and other malicious attachments one could come across visiting websites. Obviously these are important to protect a city’s confidential files. It’s also been tested by visiting known websites that install malicious software and other crap, but of course, to no avail, no breach.

Also to be on the safe side, the PC was brought in today to scan to see if something breached their software, and low and behold, nothing did, the PC is clean.

Knowing this, there is no keylogger installed, and thus, the personal information related to my account was obtained from Anet’s side. This much I know is 100% true. Now how the hacker broke into my e-mail, well that is a mystery, and I will probably swap to a different e-mail site because I no longer trust the one I’m using. The end result though, the hacker should not have had my e-mail in the first place.

Support takes well over a week at the moment. The tickets are starting to pour in it seems. It’s not the handful like they claim.

Someone else posted a link in one of the threads where you can post your ticket number and Gale I believe will update you on where it’s at. Well as long as it’s over 5 days old I think? Siphon through some of the threads on this page, I believe it’s one of the ones with a line through it.

mtpelion.4562:

The “Security Issue” is that lots of people used the same password for everything.
Hackers got that one password that was used for everything from a vulnerable site via heartbleed.
Hackers then simply entered the user name and password and stole the account.

If your account was hacked, it was because YOU didn’t follow the basic rules of using the internet:

#1. LONG passwords + Complexity = Security
#2. NEVER, EVER, for ANY reason should you use the same password twice
#3. Always assume links in emails are BAD, especially if you didn’t request the email.
#4. Every website is infected. Repeat that to yourself. Again. Let it sink in. Every website is infected. What do you do after visiting an infected website? You run a scan. Do it. Do it because every website is infected.

Incorrect, my account was hacked.

- The email I used, is only used for Gw2 (logging in to play or to these forums)
- Email password was also unique: numbers, + lower/upper case, 17 characters long
- My Gw2 password is completely different from my e-mail password
- The only e-mails I receive on that email address are guild wars 2 news updates or e-mail authentication requests
- From the last point, I never log in unless I have to (email authentication)
- I also have 3 active scanners on my PC at all times (probably overkill)

Security was not the problem, I’d reckon that my security measures are far more strict than others.

The e-mail attached to my Gw2 account was compromised, how did the hacker get a hold of my personal info? It’s only used to log into Gw2, soooo that would obviously peg it as a breach in Anet’s security for the hacker to obtain e-mail addresses.

Some e-mail sites are easier to crack than others. Lets say a hacker has access to 500 different e-mails through Anet’s breach; that doesn’t mean the hacker can gain access to all 500 e-mails. Maybe they can gain access to 100. Either way, the problem originated from the failure to guard personal information.

You can partially blame the user for choosing the wrong e-mail site, but the blame ultimately lies on the entity that fails to keep your personal information safe.

Not sure if you were around back towards the end of 2012, but thousands of accounts were compromised (e-mails included); what’s not to say that people’s e-mails were obtained back then but only used in the past couple of weeks to hack their accounts? Again, this would have been a security breach on Anet’s end due to the failure to protect personal information.

I understand that some people can be blamed due to their lack of care (identical passwords and e-mail addresses), but not all can be blamed. There are people out there who take strict security measures to protect themselves. When they can’t control another entity whom has their personal information, well, it’s really hard to blame the victim at that point.

In Anets defense, they have to thoroughly investigate each player to make sure it’s legit, which I appreciate. I personally don’t like the idea of say someone conveniently leaving their computer on and their little bro comes along siphons all the items to their account then you scream foul. You get your account rolled back with all your stuff, while your bro may get away with it.

Things shouldn’t be that easy. While I don’t agree with their 1 rollback as I’m guessing most people don’t have enough stuff to make a difference in the economy to begin with, I do believe the steps taken to roll back someones account must be vigilant.

The only reason 2 servers have a reason to team up against the 3rd server is because they cannot beat them due to the overwhelming coverage. Obviously it works to their benefit to keep the 3rd server down.

If a server doesn’t want to get teamed up against, don’t stack your server, it’s as simple as that. While I was on BG after Season 1 and throughout most of the off season, at least 7 guilds transferred there while I was there and 1 left. 7 different blackouts called. I left with about 3 weeks left before Season 2 started and I’m sure more guilds must have transferred there during that time.

I can tell you for sure, TC didn’t have at least 7 guilds transfer, and I’m almost positive JQ didn’t have 7 guilds transfer to them. Who had better coverage before all the transferring went on? Well easy answer, BG did, so they in fact, stacked their server.. now the fruits of their labour, a coordinated 2vs1.. brought it on themselves.

Anet also pointed out that the 3 way system was in place to in fact keep the stronger server in check, so it’s completely working as intended, it’s just that other servers don’t do it.

Everybody would like a nice even competitive battle, but unfortunately, some people/servers take it upon themselves to completely try to swing the odds in their favor… tsk tsk.

Im fine with it as long as they remove the arrowcart’s poison arrows and replace them with a siege busting arrows (250% extra damage to all forms of siege)

As Astral said, they are banning a lot of gold sellers and they suspect these people had previously hacked user accounts and are now just taking them over. At least this makes the most sense to me.

In regards to the hacked accounts themselves though, in order for them to be hacked (at least through e-mail authentication), the hackers needed the victims e-mail address attached to the account. Whether they obtained this information 2 days or 2 months ago, the question is, how did they get this personal information? When someone is using an e-mail that is unique or solely for the purpose of Gw2, the only way the hacker can obtain this personal information is through avenues in which the e-mail is used. For example, either logging into the forums or the game itself.

It is true, many (not all) of these current victims had their e-mail accounts hacked which is why their Gw2 account was hacked which in fact is not on Anet’s end. However, the initial breach in Anet’s security did happen on their end for the hacker to obtain the e-mail in the first place. This could have happened months ago, or it could have been back in 2012 when thousands were compromised.

Once the hacker has the e-mail, well as we know, some e-mail sites are easier to hack into than others. Just because we see a few dozen on here, that doesn’t mean there are people who don’t visit the forums experiencing the same thing. There also could be 1000’s of e-mail’s compromised at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that all of them can be broken into.

I suspect yes you’ll lost whatever progress because they roll your account back to whatever snapshot was last taken of the account. It could have been the day before the account was hacked or week (or more). Either way you should lose what you’ve accumulated.

Sorry about what happened. Add your name to the laundry list of people that have been hacked over the past week or 2.

Don’t expect an answer for at least week or more at the moment. There are many people posting for updates on their tickets that are well over a week old on their accounts being hacked.

Well as I said, if you really want to truly get rid of the gold spammers/sellers and hackers, you take the very reason they have to do any of the above, simply make gold un-tradeable.

I understand my post might be a bit long and some parts skipped, but I specifically addressed the trading post issues that would completely eliminate the “age old” MMORPG. I see many of you skipped over those parts.

A shorter version:

Anything and everything bought off the trading post becomes account bound. Exotics, junk items, siege, consumables, whatever the case may be, you buy it off the TP, it’s yours. It cannot be flipped, and if the item is broken down into mats, those mats become account bound as well.

On the flip side, if you directly e-mail any of the above items to another account, they become account bound and cannot be sold. Basically when an item switches from one account to another, it can no longer be traded.. basically 1 time trade only rule, except gold cannot be traded at all.

The only difference with this suggestion than what we have now? We can freely buy/sell and flip mats for gold on the TP. The other, items now become account bound upon purchase instead of soul-bound upon equipping.

NonToxic " all a gold seller has to do is buy the buyer’s 400g trading post listing. Gold is exchanged, seller is mildly bothered, everybody else has to deal with this headache for all time."

Remember this couldn’t happen. Once the listing was purchased by the hacker, those items now become account bound and completely useless. The best they could do is break them down for mats to use on their own account as the mats themselves could not be sold either.

SyllyReth “and purchasing junk items in the TP to transfer the gold is a trick as old as MMOs.”

Again, Remember any items purchased off the TP become account bound, they cannot be sold again for gold or broken down into mats to sell either.

AstralProjections “Way too easy to get around. Sending expensive mats, exotics, precursors, etc… by email is possible if gold is not.”

Again, I outlined in the initial post any items exchanged by e-mail are account bound as well, thus completely useless to the receiver if their intention is to make profit.

Who does it really effect?

Hackers – Most definitely, no gain in hacking any longer

Gold botters – They can’t sell their gold, so they are in essence gone

WvW’ers – Hardly, they buy consumables, and all armor they buy is either soulbound because they use it or account bound as they have ascended.

PvPers – Im not one, but as far as I know, when you equip an armor/weapon piece it soulbinds so it makes no difference, they can’t freely flip stuff so it doesn’t affect them

PvE’ers – Unless they are TP flippers, it shouldn’t affect them at all. I imagine most of what they buy off the TP, they use, so no issue here

Dungeon Runners – I don’t play dungeons, but my understanding is you can’t list anything on the TP purchased with dungeon tokens.. correct? No issue here

People that give gold to friends – Perhaps, but gold isn’t hard to come by in this game, very easy to make what you need through regular game play

Unless I’m missing something there, the only people this truly affects are your gold botters/spammers, and hackers.

Edit – I should also mention, it shouldn’t be any skin of Anet’s backs now to restore/recover accounts because the economy issue will no longer be a problem. That way if a malicious hacker just wanted to reak havoc on your account and sell/destroy everything, well, no harm no foul, account can be restored without harming the economy.

What I don’t understand is how these hackers are getting a hold of people’s e-mail accounts. I understand the comment that 99.9% of the time the hacker has access to the e-mail, because obviously, they need to send an e-mail to themselves to change the GW2 password.

The question is, how is the hacker getting access to this private information?

People like myself (and I know I’m not alone) whom have a unique e-mail only used for Gw2 purposes. I keep my personal e-mail and Gw2 e-mail accounts completely separate. There is nothing interchangeable about the 2, nor are the passwords even remotely close together. All my passwords are also completely different from one another.

Remember, in order for the hack to take place, they need access to some information to begin with to compromise the account. In this case, all it seems like they need is an e-mail address.

I consider my e-mail address personal information linked to my account; I’m a bit uneasy as to how hackers got a hold of this information considering the e-mail that is linked to my Gw2 account, is a unique email only used for the account.

As the title states, here me out. Sorry if this is too long, a TL/DR version, skip the first 3 paragraphs.

Now I understand this might be a popular idea, and I also understand it’s probably a vehemently hated idea. I also don’t believe this was Anet’s initial vision when Gw2 was created.. the “play how you want to play” focus. Sometimes things, IMO, are essential to both game longevity, economy stabilization, account security, and overall play experience.

An example, D3; I don’t believe Blizzard’s vision was to have a game where gold couldn’t be traded, but alas, that’s the road they took. When they had a system in game where players can financially benefit, what better reason to hack someones account or bot?

Now I admire Anet’s vigilance in keeping up with the banning of botters as I rarely have seen any since I started playing over a year ago, but in light of recent activities, people are still vulnerable despite having taken the maximum amount of precautions. Now given Anet’s 1 account restore rule, it really works in favor of the hackers because you ban someone, they hack someone else to start again. Aka, you ban a gold botter account, they now hack a legit player and start again; legit player left screwed.

The way I see it, what a better way to discourage a hacker/botter than to take away their very reason to commit such activities in the first place; stop gold from being traded. It can still be used on the trading post to purchase, but as far as trading from one person to another, IMO, that should be stopped. I know this has advantages and also disadvantages, but I think there is a workout for the negative aspects.

I think some rules would need to come into play to make it work (which I think would also help/stop item flippers on the trading post).

1. Make gold un-tradeable from 1 player to another, it can still be used for the trading post and in-game purchases

2. All items traded on the trading post exchanged from player to player become bound to their account (sorry flippers). This includes everything: Weapons, Armor, Materials, consumables, siege, etc. I craft something, sell it on the TP, whatever the buyer bought, it’s now bound to their account. I mine a stack of platinum, mail it to another player, if they accept it, that stack of platinum is bound to their account. Anything they craft with their account bound mats, becomes account bound itself. Crafting the platinum to make darksteel, you guess it account bound. The account bound darksteel used to forge whatever item, account bound as well.

3. Account bound items can still be salvaged, but the mats themselves will still be account bound and cannot be sold. Items that are not account bound and salvaged, can have their mats sold.

Seems like a good way to ensure a healthy/stable economy, as well as, protect people from being hacked. Why hack when there is literally nothing you can do to benefit from it?

The negatives?

Possibly Guild banks…

Guild leader and whomever they appoint can access the banks gold and items. The gold in the guild bank, basically acts like a bank account for the Trading post. For example, the guild bank has 1000g; when either the guild leader or those they appointed access the bank, there is an option to click on the trading post. They now see they have 1000g available to make purchases off the TP (siege and consumables). These of course become account bound, but who cares, who else is usually going to drop siege and food on the battle field than your commanders?

If the guild leader or people appointed are hacked, what can the hacker do? Anything they purchase off the TP is account bound, so they can’t do anything with it. They can’t pillage the gold, as it’s un-tradeable. At worse, they might be able to salvage some exotics and mail the mats to their account, which of course is completely useless. Even if the hacker is malicious and wants to destroy/salvage everything, why can’t Anet just restore the account? The economy isn’t affected due to un-tradeable gold, as well as, all items and mats becoming account bound (can’t double up your items on a rollback if you give them to your buddy to hold. I believe Anet’s current 1 account restore rule is due to how it affects the economy.. well, problem solved.

What are other’s thoughts on this? I’m also curious if Anet has ever thought about making gold un-tradeable so to speak, which would probably make their lives infinitely easier.

If it has to do with your account being hacked, unfortunately they are inundated with requests at the moment. I think they said it would take several days at minimum, though 9 days at the moment seems a bit excessive

Astral Projections.7320:

If they gave multiple resets to people, what’s to stop people from getting together to scam the system? One person give another the login information. The second “hacks” the account and “steals” everything. Then the first person gets an full account restore. Rinse and repeat. If the “hacker” uses trial accounts where possible or buys them when on sale he doesn’t have to risk his main account.

One thing Gaile has said is they are currently banning a lot of gold sellers. These people are now taking over accounts they hacked previously but left sitting untouched. This may account for a lot of people getting hit now.

That would be Anet’s problem to sort out, not the players. If their security measures aren’t working, then it’s on them to fix the economy afterwords and deal with the consequences. It’s fairly easy for them to track if log-ins are out of the ordinary.

For instance, myself, only log in to play from 1 computer (which is almost everyday, and i’ve only ever played it from one computer. I occasionally log in to a second computer to browse the forums, this would also be very evident on my log in history… Now if suddenly someone logs in from say Korea or China (I’m in North America), something is now up.

If I gave a group of friends my log-in info in NA and suddenly my account was hacked, I can see where there might be reason to be suspicious. When the log in and items removed/sold is on the other side of the world, well it’s pretty obvious. If I also have no history with PM’ing people in game from the across the world, well that’s another dead give away.

They have many ways to track it.

If people have been hacked despite having taken the strictest security measures, this would seem it would be more a problem on Anet’s end would it not?

I’ve already ready many posts from people stating after people have got their accounts back, they’ve lost them again despite having authenticators and e-mail authentication. What’s Anet going to do? Just leave people high and dry?

They need to keep rolling people’s accounts back until they straighten their security issues out. This recent string of hacking is not the fault of the players, it’s clearly an issue on Anet’s end as the hackers have obviously found a hole in their security.

My account can be added to the lists of accounts being hacked. Like everybody else, a mobile authenticator was added to my account, except I may have caught it before it was activated. When I tried to log on this morning but couldn’t, I was able to change my password without getting the authentication message (at least 1 battle won).

If Anet wan’t to drive as many people away from Gw2 as possible, no better way to tell people they can’t help them after 1 rollback. Good luck with these people ever recommending the game to anyone.

Lordkrall – I would venture that only a very small fraction of people use, let alone even look at the forums. I would also guess that there are many people who only log on a couple times a week and may not know they are even hacked yet. Judging by how this section of the forums have exploded with hack posts, my guess would be a lot of people got hit.

A thread pops up like this about once a month. Basically replace 9vs9vs9 with faction vs faction vs faction. It can be tweaked for whatever would work out best for the current population. It usually gets great support but like many threads, it gets pushed far down the pages by a barrage of other threads that usually can be placed into 1. Hopefully this one stays at the top for awhile so Anet can take a good look at it.

It may not be the best solution, but it’s the best solution we have so far. It fixes WvW coverage disparities for the most part. It keeps a far more even playing field. It breeds more strategy. The only issue is, some players hold onto this false value of server pride. If there is ever one thing that will sink WvW the quickest it’s a players neglect to let this issue go in favor of making WvW better.

It’s just the style of match-up, it basically favors 1 group, the one with the most coverage. Whether obtaining that coverage through server stacking or organizing a 2vs1, those with the greatest numbers wins.

I do suspect though Anet will do something about coverage disparities after this season and before next. There are far too many topics cropping up about it now as it’s it’s showing glaring holes into their current system.

They could get around the cap by simply amplifying the AoE damage to the 5 targets it hits.

10 targets = 25% damage
15 targets = 50% damage
20 targets = 75% damage
25 targets = 100% damage
30 targets = 125% damage

and so on.. max of 50 targets capped at 200% increased damage. Yes the 5 unlucky people it hits will probably drop pretty quick, then when dead, another 5 targets get destroyed.

Realistically, this shouldn’t be that bad; it’s not often more than 20 people wander into an AoE circle at once unless they PVD’ing.

DeWolfe.2174:

^You would have to reset the maps completely too. Because one time zones T3’s would roll over and create a clear advantage.

Good point, everything resets at 0 during each time slot, a much better idea.

So basically the server with the greatest coverage wins then.

How about this, how about we split the PPT score into 3 separate scores. Midnight to 8, 8 to 4, and 4 to midnight. So basically there is a potential for 3 points per match, and none of those PPT scores interact with each other.

Basically those servers with massive coverage during Midnight to 8 are guaranteed a point for that time slot. The beauty of this is, it doesn’t guarantee them a win in the other 2 time slots. In order to win the match, a server must win at least 2 out of the 3 time slots.

More emphasis is now moved towards skill and less towards coverage. So basically those servers with little skill and lots of coverage are doomed.

Do you support that OP?

Akkadian.7206:

DeadlySynz.3471:

It would be interesting for Anet to comment on that looking at 2 different points of view.

On one hand, 2vs1 I suppose could ruin the enjoyment of another if they are essentially relegated to being stuck in their spawn point.

On the other hand, stacking your server to the point your opponents have no chance (and cause other servers WvW populations to implode) also ruins the enjoyment of others on a much grander scale than 2vs1.

Remember, you can’t be biased about this, you have to look at it from all angles but you do bring up an interesting point.

Anet already did say that 2vs1 is a viable strategy to bring down the bigger server, so I think we already know the answer to that.

With that, it really is in the server’s hands to enhance their own enjoyment. They have to ask themselves the question “why is their enjoyment being ruined”. Then they have to ask themselves “is there anything we can do to prevent the actions taken against us”

Answering the second question should come to the glaring conclusion: Do not stack your server. Action/reaction as they say.

JQ stacks SEA even further from SoR transfers.
TC receives a handful of guilds from SoR transfers.
BG receives 1 OXC guild fielding 20-25 players and an ex-BG guild.

Lets not forget BG has lost guilds since season 1.

BG stacked ftw.

Once you get it through your head that BG players simply play longer when the odds are even, you’ll see how silly you and the countless others are when you claim a server is stacked despite you being part of a FULL server as well. It’s not BG’s job to get your guys into wvw, whether they’re PvE/PvX/WvW.

This is coming from a former BG player whom played most of Season 1 on BG as well as most of the off season before Season 2. During the off season, I counted 6 separate blackouts and welcoming’s of new guilds. 6, not 2, but 6. The only guild that left I believe was ZD if I’m not mistaken. At no point do I recall any welcoming of an “old” BG guild so I guess that would make the number at 7 guilds joining. You also ignore the glaring fact that BG already had greater coverage on their server than the other 2 before those 7 guilds transferred over. Not only that, I wonder how many guilds transferred to BG after I left. How many transfers did BG get 3 weeks prior to Season 2 starting? Add that 7.

BG guilds did not pull long hours, I know that for a fact. I often played during prime time and straight through Oceanic/SEA. The guilds would always change, and during those “off hours” BG’s numbers would often double or borderline triple the opposing forces. That’s why they won, that is the only reason.

I spent more time rezzing dead allies on BG than I did killing enemy players. To say they were winning with skill is simply not true. When numbers were even across the maps, our PPT hovered between 150-200. When Oceanic/SEA time came about the numbers would jump to 350-425. Throughout the day, it was 250-300.

As a former BG player myself, I can state as a fact, BG players do not play longer, they have more players/guilds covering all hours of the day.